If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving
and for once could do nothing
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Pablo Nerudo, Keeping Quiet
From a different tradition, but saying the same thing as the last two days. “Erasing”, letting go of preconceived constructions, frees us up to write a new story with each moment.
Only the hand that erases
can write the true thing.
Things are continually changing and change in ways that we do not expect. The human tendency is to fix ourselves and each moment into something expected and define it by how it has to be, rather than how it is evolving. The great adventure is to live each moment fully, as a gift which has arrived without us expecting it.
A person who has clarified their real state sees only
each thing,
each thing,
each thing,
and lets go of understanding an underlying nature for each thing.
Dogen, Uji
Whatever is subject to arising,
is also subject to passing away
The Buddha, Collection of Middle-length Discourses, 56
I give thanks for arriving
Safely in a new dawn,
For the gifts of eyes
To see the world,
The gift of mind
To feel at home
In my life.
The waves of possibility
Breaking on the shore of dawn,
The harvest of the past
That awaits my hunger,
And all the furtherings
This new day will bring.
John O Donohue
To love life means to love its vulnerability, asking for care, attention, guidance, and support. Life and death are connected by vulnerability. The newborn child and the dying elder both remind us of the preciousness of our lives. Let’s not forget the preciousness and vulnerability of life.
Henri Nouwen
